


Fever Dream

by Dr_TJ_Eckleburg



Category: Bride of Re-Animator (1989), Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5847055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_TJ_Eckleburg/pseuds/Dr_TJ_Eckleburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was a passion—a fever—that burned Herbert’s eyelids and fingertips."</p>
<p>Unapologetic sickfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever Dream

It was a passion—a fever—that burned Herbert’s eyelids and fingertips. Hot against cool, pale flesh; a heat that left his heart in his throat. Pinned to the operating table like a butterfly to cork, Dan was a work of art as much as he was now a work of science. He was no longer dead, but an Adonis of marble with blood returning life to his cheeks. Eyelids fluttering slowly—a perfect and downright glorious re-animation.

Herbert couldn’t recall how or why Dan had perished. It was inconsequential. Dan now looked upon his master with saucer eyes. He breathed Herbert’s name in reverence peppered with fear, leaned into Herbert’s hand as he reached to cup his face.

The lab was shrouded in shadow save for some sourceless glow that haloed them. A more romantic mind might have conjured metaphors concerning the light of scientific progress… Herbert’s mind was occupied with more important matters; pressing warm fingers to pulse points to find the thick and heavy thrum of life, flexing well-formed limbs unfettered by clothing.

Oddly, Herbert couldn’t even recall what he had done to get to this point, and he wasn’t sure how to perform the procedure on future cases. There was only this moment, and their gazes locked as that darkness creeping in the corners of the lab rushed to consume them.

\--

Herbert slowly opened his eyes to find himself staring at some putrid-green mass swirling before him. The smell of ancient dust assaulted his senses, and his mind ached as a hand reached to press against his forehead.

Somewhere over him, his Adonis said, “Well, at least you’re not dead.”

The green mass undulated until it clearly became the back of their sofa, but all the same, Herbert closed his eyes again. He needed to return to the lab, but his head throbbed incessantly. The ticking of the clock on the wall reached his ears, and the murmur of the radio drifted from the kitchen. Details of the real world trickled in around him.

“Have you taken anything? You’re burning up.”

Yes, he could tell—the fever left him bleary and nauseous. He endeavored to open his eyes again to see Dan sitting on the end of the couch in a Nike sweatshirt he hadn’t pulled out in years. With his arms over his chest and one eyebrow cocked, he was not the most heartwarming picture of concern.

There was a harshness to reality, to his surroundings. The lights were far too bright, and Dan was talking far too loudly. Herbert certainly wasn’t a dreamer, let alone some soppy Romantic, but for the time being he very much would’ve liked the real world to bugger off. Dan scolded him— _scolding; really, Daniel?_ —and said he needed to take something.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I am a doctor,” Herbert managed and covered his eyes with one hand. His body ached from head to toe. It had not occurred to him until he finally made it home after ten hours at the hospital that he was ill, and then it all crashed into him at once.

Ah, the inconveniences of being human.

Dan murmured something about the flu going around, stood to hover over Herbert as he pressed three pills into his hand. Just moments before in some far away lab, Herbert had hovered over Dan and taken him by the hand—he did not like being on this side of the equation. Still, he managed to swallow the bitter pills. Herbert knew he was not of sound enough mind to work and yet he wanted to with a passion he had not known in many fruitless weeks.

Perhaps it was his nurse— _his muse_ —who inspired him now, disgusting though Herbert knew it was. He should have no inspiration before him besides the impassioned promise of intellectual and scientific progress. But in his muddled mental state he could admit only to himself that there was something else.

A vicious chill rattled his bones and Dan placed a glass of water on the table beside him. He insisted he sleep. Herbert would, though it wasn’t because Dan told him to. He let weariness close his eyes so that he might dream again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you as always to Backwards-Blackbird for editing, and also thanks to dorothy_notgale for chatting about the fic concept.


End file.
